630 

B7 

MAIN 


UU-NHLF 


B   ^  5D5  ^10 


Ube  Tflntversit^  of  Cbicaoo 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN 
THE  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED  TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  ARTS 

AND  LITERATURE  IN  CANDIDACY  FOR  THE  DEGREE 

OF  DOCTOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY 

(department  or  Semitic  languages  and  uteratxtres) 


BY 

CAROLINE  MAY  BREYFOGLE 


Reprinted,  in  part,  with  additions,  from 

The  American  Journal  of  Theology,  Vol.  XVI,  No.  4 

1912 


Zbc  tlniverstt^  of  Cbicaoo 

FOUNDED  BY  JOHN  D.  ROCKEFELLER 


THE  HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN 
THE  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD 


A  DISSERTATION 

SUBMITTED   TO   THE  FACULTY  OF   THE   GRADUATE   SCHOOL   OF  ARTS 

AND  LITERATURE   IN   CANDIDACY  FOR   THE  DEGREE 

OF   DOCTOR  OF   PHILOSOPHY 

(department  of  SEMITIC  LANGUAGES  AND  LITERATURES) 


BY 

CAROLINE  MAY  BREYFOGLE 

'I 


Reprinted,  in  part,  with  additions,  from 

The  American  JoxmNAL  or  Theology,  Vol.  XVI,  No.  4 

1912 


SMCbc 

67 


Composed  and  Printed  By 

TbeTUnlversity  of  Chicairo  Pren 

Chicago,  lUlnoU,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  The  Sense  of  Sin  as  Uneasiness  or  Reproach  Involved  in  the  Breach 
of  Custom I 

n.  The  Period  of  the  Prophets  Brings  the  Ftindamental  Reconstruction 
of  Attitudes  and  Habits  and  the  Consciousness  of  Sin  in  the  Social 
and  Moral  Realms 8 

HL  With  the  Closer  Organization  of  Society  Comes  a  Clearer  Formula- 
tion of  Details  and  a  Confusion  of  Legal  and  Moral  Guilt     ...     14 

Appendix  A:  The  Basis  of  Yahwe's  Connection  with  Law  and  Justice  20 

Appendix  B:  The  Content  of  the  Mosaic  Code 23 

Appendix  C:  The  New  Element  in  the  Deuteronomic  Code     ....  24 

Appendix  D :  Bibliography '  •  27 


270917 


THE  HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  THE  PRE-EXILIC 

PERIOD 


CAROLINE  M.  BREYFOGLE 
Columbus,  Ohio 


Any  emotion  so  primitive,  so  genuine,  so  universal  as  that 
feeling  of  uneasiness  called  "sense  of  sin"  is  not  something  posited 
in  life  by  conscience  or  by  the  arbitrary  expression  of  commands; 
it  must  have  developed  in  the  "adjustment  of  habits  to  ends 
through  the  medium  of  a  problematic,  doubtful,  and  precarious 
situation."*  This  must  have  been  the  "ground-pattern  upon 
which  the  present  inteUigence  and  emotion  are  built";  and  it  is 
in  an  endeavor  to  trace  this  ground-pattern  in  the  hfe  of  the 
Hebrew  people  that  the  present  study  is  made. 

In  early  society,  social  sentiments  were  the  product  of  the 
instinctive  impulse  of  self-preservation  and  self-assertion  and  were 
developed  through  the  formation  of  habits  and  customs  and  by  the 
occurrence  of  crises  and  control.  Once  formed,  custom  indicated 
the  method  of  achieving  results,  hence  any  breach  of  custom  spelled 
misfortune,  want  of  adjustment,  conflict.  When  the  misfortune 
was  keen  enough  to  awaken  fear  or  when  it  involved  the  disapproval 
of  the  group  offended,  including  in  the  group  the  spirits  associated 
with  the  interests  and  value  of  the  group,  then  the  conflict  of  desire 
and  fear  within  the  individual  produced  the  emotion  or  feeling 
called  sense  of  sin.  In  other  words,  it  was  the  feeling  associated 
with  evil,  although  evil  as  ethical  wrong  and  evil  as  misfortune 
were  not  sharply  differentiated  as  with  us;    that  was  bad  which 

'  John  Dewey,  "The  Interpretation  of  the  Savage  Mind,"  published  in  Thomas, 
Source  Book  for  Social  Origins,  p.  185. 


2  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

was  bad  for  something.  This  is  well  illustrated  in  Arabia  today, 
where  the  consciousness  of  sin  is  scarcely  to  be  found  among  the 
ignorant  without  the  accompaniment  of  misfortune,  so  that  sin 
and  misfortune  are  practically  correlative  terms.* 

Among  the  Hebrews,  the  earliest  notion  of  sin  is  indicated  by 
the  use  of  the  Hebrew  J^tjH  as  lailure  ot  an  action  to  achieve  an 
end  or  goal  inherent  in  its  own  activity,  when  the  failure  involved 
some  re?^  TTr^jfiff^rHme-  e.g.,  a  seeking  which  does  not  find  (Prov. 
8:36;'  Job  5:24,*  both  Kal),  such  a  hastening  with  the  feet  that 
one  misses  the  path  and  thus  defeats  all  haste  (Prov.  19 : 2)  ,s  making 
a  certain  tale  of  bricks  each  day  and  failing  to  do  so  when  punish- 
ment and  misfortime  followed  (Exod.  5:16,  cf.  5:13,  14,  17,  19),'' 
failing  in  the  intrigue  for  a  throne  when  Ufe  hung  upon  the  issue 
(I  Kings  1:21),  failure  in  those  services  due  from  a  butler  and  baker 
to  a  king  (Gen.,  chap.  40,  cf.  41 19),  questioning  as  to  the  action  in 
which  the  failure  lies,  as  Abimelech  of  Abraham  (Gen.  20:9,  cf. 

»  Samuel  Ives  Curtiss,  Primitive  Semitic  Religion  Today,  p.  124. 

» Prov.  8:36,  "^S^tjhl  means  failure  in  finding  the  object  sought  for,  as  shown 

by  comparison  with  the  parallel  in  verse  36a;  "Whoso  findeth  me  findeth  life 

He  that  misseth  the  way  wrongeth  his  own  soul." 

<npB  signifies  "to  inspect,  to  investigate"  (I  Sam.  14:17),  or  "to  pass  in 
review,  to  muster"  (Brown,  Driver,  and  Briggs),  evidently  for  the  purpose  of  finding 
(Isa.  13:4). 

s  Prov.  19:2.  Wildeboer  says:  "Wo  keine  Erkenntnis  (oder  tJberlegung)  ist, 
da  ist  (selbst)  der  Eifer  nicht  gut."    Haste  in  itself  misses  or  fails  (Prov.  21:5;  28 :  20). 

*  Exod.  s :  16,  "And  the  taskmasters  were  urgent,  saying:  Fulfil  your  works,  your 
daily  tasks  as  when  there  was  straw  (vs.  13)  ...  .  and  they  demanded  of  them, 
Wherefore  have  ye  not  fulfilled  your  task  both  yesterday  and  today  in  making  brick 
as  heretofore?"  (vs.  14).  "Then  the  officers  of  the  children  of  Israel  came  and  cried 
imto  Pharaoh,  There  is  no  straw  given  thy  servants  and  they  say  imto  us,  Make  brick; 
and  behold  thy  servants  are  beaten  and  thy  people  sin"  (do  not  fulfil  the  daily  tale 
of  bricks  when  the  issue  is  pimishment).  The  answer  comes,  "Ye  are  idle,  ye  are  idle 
....  go  therefore  now  and  work;  for  there  shall  no  straw  be  given  you,  yet  shall 
ye  deliver  the  tale  of  bricks"  (Exod.  5: 13-19).  The  MT  reads  1^37  nXtSm  ;  LXX 
Pesh  reads  TpSTb  .  nSTpn") ;  S  -fpT  nSKni.  Dillmannsays  (/2"ow.,p.  51):  "und 
es  stindigt  dein  Volk,"  d.h.  Israel,  welches  doch  auch  dein  Volk  ist,  ist  siindig 
und  schuldig  (Gen.  43:9);  zu  DIP  als  fem.  vgl.  Jud.  18:7;  Jer.  8:5  und  zu  T\  ^n 
flir  n^tpn  Gen.  33:11,  so  Kn;  s.  auch  zu  32:17.  The  text  has  caused  considerable 
trouble,  Dillmann  says:  "Aber  richtig  kann  das  nicht  sein."  Baentsch  {Hand  Kom., 
in  loco)  says  of  the  reconstruction  of  the  LXX  Pesh:  "Freilich  ist  denn  die  Rede 
etwas  scharf  wie  sie  sich  fiir  Bittsteller  nicht  recht  ziemt,  aber  MT  giebt  keinen  Sinn." 
If  translated  as  indicated  above,  the  difficulty  of  the  text  disappears. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OP  SIN  IN  PRE-EXIUC  PERIOD  3 

31:38),  Dav-id  of  Jonathan  as  concerns  King  Saul  (I  Sam.  20:16). 
In  the  Hiphil  it  occurs  with  5<'b  Qudg.  20: 16)  ''shooting  at  an  hair's 
breadth  and  not  missing,"  in  the  Piel  (Gen.  31:39)  losing  certain 
of  the  flock  in  the  shepherding,  albeit  by  wild  beasts  or  theft  by- 
night.  This  confusion  of  sin  and  misfortune  is  further  evidenced  by 
the  use  of  the  same  Hebrew  root  for  both.  rTT*  is  the  shocking 
brutality  at  Gibeah  (Judg.  20: 12,  13),  a  mischief  or  injury  done  one 
man  by  another  (Gen.  26:29;  I  Sam.  25:21;  Judg.  15:3;  11:27), 
a  wilful  transgression  paralleled  with  7'>rS  (I  Sam.  24:11).  It  is 
also  the  misfortune  which  overtook  Lot  (Gen.  19:19),  the  loss  to 
Joseph  of  his  golden  cup  (Gen.  44 : 4,  cf.  Gen.  50: 20),  a  loss  enhanced 
by  the  divining  use  of  the  cup;  and  any  misfortune  in  general; 
"  shall  e\'il  befall  a  dty  and  the  Lord  hath  not  done  it "  (Amos  3 : 6, 
cf.  Jer.  2:3;  Neh.  1:3;  Judg.  15:3;  Ps.  90:15).  "Behold  this 
evil  is  of  the  Lord;  why  should  I  wait  for  the  Lord  any  longer?" 
(n  Kings  6:33,  cf.  Amos  9:4;  Exod.  32:12).  In  the  priestly  law 
nb^tsr;  and  D*r5<  denote  both  the  trespass  and  the  pajment  which 
is  to  make  good  the  trespass  (Lev.  5:21-26;  6:19,  23;  19:21,  22; 
Num.  5:5-7;  6:12;  18:9;  II  Kings  12:17;  I  Sam.  6:3). 

In  the  early  Hebrew  community  the  pressing  needs  of  Hfe  were 
met  as  they  arose;  there  was  Httle  co-ordination  of  interests,  for 
''tribal  or  social  soHdarity  was  not  so  much  a  recognition  of  com- 
munity interests  as  a  proof  of  the  vagueness  of  man's  ideas  con- 
cerning the  boundaries  of  his  own  selfhood.""  His  concepts  of  the 
natural  forces  were  indefinite  and  incoherent  Mke  the  concept  of 
his  own  interests.  Good  and  the  means  of  its  attainment  were 
related  in  inconsequential  and  magical  ways.  Death,  misfortune, 
disease  were  not  the  mechanical  outworking  of  the  natural  forces 
but  they  were  the  punishment  exacted  by  the  ^Hful,  animistic 
powers  on  the  general  principle  of  vengeance  controlling  human 
society.  This  confusion  of  thought  was  manifest  both  in  the  treat- 
ment of  disease  and  in  the  half-physical,  half-moral  concept  of  sin 
as  illustrated  by  the  infection  of  clean  and  unclean.  Unclean  taboos 
were  certain  forbidden  animals  (Deut.,  chap.  14;  Lev.,  chap  11; 
Gen.  8:20;  7:2;  I  Sam.  14:32  f.;  Lev.  17:15;  22:8;  Exod.  34:26), 
certain  persons  and  things  connected  with  birth  (Exod.  19:15; 

7  Ralph  Barton  Peny,  The  Moral  Economy,  p.  233. 


4  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

Lev.,  chap.  12;  15:18;  Deut.  23:11;  I  Sam.  20:26;  21:6;  II  Sam. 
11:4),  or  with  death  (Num.  19:11-16;  31:19;  9:6-10;  5:2;  Lev. 
chap.  21)  and  certain  unclean  diseases  (Lev.  13:15;  22:1-6; 
Num.  19:11-16;  II  Kings  5:27).  It  is  well  known  that  these 
taboos  connect  with  the  two  great  taboos  existent  among  early- 
tribes,  those  of  food  and  of  sex.  The  physical  infection  incurred 
was  variously  conceived  as  sin,  disease,  possession  by  an  evil  spirit, 
or  misfortune.  As  in  the  early  Babylonian  reHgious  Hterature,  they 
are  all  one  and  the  same  thing;  a  half -physical,  half -moral  some- 
thing which  has  entered  the  body  by  magical  or  supernatural 
means,^  whether  in  retaHation  for  the  act  or  whether  because  of  a 
certain  kinship  between  the  evil  spirit  and  the  doer  of  the  deed,  is 
not  always  clear,  as  the  use  of  the  term  "sons  of  Belial"  indicates.' 
Thus,  every  patient  was  a  sinner,  the  curing  of  sickness  and  the 
expiation  of  sin  were  identical  (Lev  14 :  19&) ,  "morals  were  material- 
ized and  nature  was  demoraHzed.""  The  law  of  uncleanness  states : 
"They  shall  keep  my  charge  lest  they  bear  sin  for  it"  (Lev.  22:9), 
sin  being  a  bodily  imperfection,  as  the  great  sin  brought  by  Abra- 
ham's action  upon  Abimelech  (Gen.  20:9,17,  cf.  12:17;  ^'^'^  in 
Gren.  26:10).  It  was  the  leprosy  laid  upon  Miriam  when  she 
rebelled  against  Moses:    "And  Aaron  said  unto  Moses,  Oh  my 

*  Julian  Morgenstem,  The  Doctrine  of  Sin  in  the  Babylonian  Religion,  p.  6;  Justus 
KSberle,  Siinde  und  Gnade,  pp.  6,  23;  Fritz  Bennewitz,  Die  Siinde  im  Alien  Israel, 
p.  50;  R.  Campbell  Thompson,  Semitic  Magic,  p.  194. 

"Dass  dieses  Siindengefuhl  fast  regelmassig  durch  Erfahrung  eines  ausseren 
Leides  ausgelost  erscheint,  dass  Siindenvergebung  und  Wegnahme  des  ausseren 
Leides  miteinander  identifiziert  werden  d.h.,  dass  die  Vergebung  in  ausserer  Wieder- 
herstellung  eriebt  sein  will,  dass  kultische  Siinden  ebenso  emst  genommen  werden  wie 
schwere  religios-sittliche  Verfehlungen  lasst  diese  Psalmen  freilich  hinter  hochsten 
Ausserungen  israelitischer  Frommigkeit,  wie  sie  z.  B.  in  Psalm  73  zu  Tage  tritt  um  ein 
Betrachtliches  zuriickstehen.  Immerhin  abcr  pulsiert  in  ihnen  ein  kraftig  religioses 
Leben  und  wir  haben  auf  jeden  Fall  ein  Recht,  sie  zu  den  edelsten  Erzeugnissen  auf 
dem  Boden  heidnischer  Religiositat  zu  rechnen." — Bruno  Baentsch,  Monotheismus, 
p.  13- 

'  '^T  •  ■?~'i*?  ^^  *  ^^''^  ^^^  ^°^^  ^^^  ^^^  ^'^  ^^^  '^^  sinner  (Judg.  20: 13,  cf.  19: 22; 
Deut.  13:13;  I  Sam.  1:16;  2:12;  10:27;  11  Sam.  16:7;  20:1;  I  Kings  21:10).  It 
indicates  the  voluntary  disposition  as  does  the  word  for  folly  blSJ  (Gen.  34:7;  Judg. 
20:6,  10;  19:23;  II  Sam.  13:12,  13;  I  Sam.  25:25,  cf.  II  Sam.  3:33,  "Should  Abner 
die  as  a  fool  dieth  ?  "). 

"Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  p.  458;  L.  T.  Hobhouse,  Morals  in  Evolution,  II, 
264  f. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  5 

Lord,  lay  not,  I  pray  thee,  sin  upon  us,  for  that  we  have  done  fool- 
ishly and  for  that  we  have  sinned.  Let  her  not,  I  pray  thee,  be 
as  one  dead  of  whom  the  flesh  is  half  consumed  when  he  cometh 
out  of  his  mother's  womb"  (Num.  12:11-15).  An  epidemic  was 
the  sin  brought  by  Aaron  upon  Israel  (Exod.  32:2of.,  cf.  32:25 
and  Deut.  9:21),  where  death  probably  came  to  the  guilty  through 
drinking  the  magic  water  after  the  manner  of  the  ordeal  (Num. 
5:23  f.),  a  remnant  of  the  account  being  contained  in  32:1-6, 
15-20,  35.  It  is  the  plague  of  Egypt,  the  sin  of  all  the  nations  that 
go  not  up  to  keep  the  feast;  Saul's  melanchoHa  was  a  sign  of  im- 
purity within,  "an  evil  spirit  from  the  Lord."  The  half -physical, 
half-moral  character  of  disease  is  shown  by  the  plagues  brought  by 
Moses  upon  Egypt  by  the  use  of  his  wand  and  laid  by  the  same 
magic  means.  In  the  period  of  the  New  Testament,  this  thought 
of  epUepsy  and  insanity  as  demon  possession  still  persists,  the 
unclean  spirits  leaving  the  man  to  enter  into  the  swine,  bringing 
immediate  destruction  upon  them.  Perhaps  the  same  confusion 
between  sin  and  disease  lay  at  the  basis  of  Jesus'  words  to  the  sick 
of  the  palsy:  "Son,  be  of  good  cheer,  thy  sins  are  forgiven  thee" 
(Matt.  9:2,  cf.  Mark  2:5;  Luke  5:20);  to  the  bystanders  at  least 
it  bore  the  implication  of  the  cure  of  his  disease.  The  half -physical 
conception  of  sin  colors  the  description  of  it  as  "something  alive, 
crouching  like  a  wild  beast,  ready  to  spring  upon  one"  (Gen.  4:7); 
"sure  to  find  one  out"  (Num.  32:23);  "to  be  drawn  as  by  a  cart 
rope"  (Isa.  5 :  18);  capable  of  lying  dormant  in  the  soul  from  birth 
to  be  awakened  by  law  (Rom.  7:8);  having  energy  and  life  of  its 
own  as  in  Eden  (Gen.,  chap.  3).  Sin,  like  disease,  is  cleansed  by 
magic  washings  (II  Kings  5:iof.;  Lev.  13:6,  34  f.;  14:11-20; 
16:26);  by  burnings  (Num.  16:46;  Isa.  6:8,  cf.  Ps.  6:1,2);  by 
exorcism  (I  Kings  17:18,  21;  II  KLings  4:31-33);  and  by  trans- 
ference by  means  of  the  scapegoat  (Lev.  6:24 — 7:7;  i6:2if.). 
The  indefiniteness  and  scope  of  the  notion  of  sin  in  this  early  period 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  man  was  an  indefinite  and  incoherent 
aggregate  of  interests  which  had  not  yet  assumed  the  form  of  even 
individual  and  commimity  purpose."    Whenever,  for  any  reason, 

"  "The  moral  feeling  at  this  stage  is  not  disengaged  from  a  prudential  dread  of 
himian  vengeance  or  of  mysterious  forces  in  which  there  is  nothing  peculiariy  moral." 
— Hobhouse,  n,  73. 


6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

a  social  custom  vital  to  the  life  and  welfare  of  the  community  became 
conscious  of  itself,  it  was  formulated  as  the  expression  of  the  per- 
sonal will  of  the  god  or  spirit.  When  Yahwe  entered  into  his- 
torical relations  with  Israel  as  national  God  and  Deliverer,  he 
appeared  as  the  protector  of  custom,  law,  and  justice."  (See 
Appendix  A,  p.  20.) 

Any  breach  of  custom  or  law  becomes,  then,  an  act  of  disobe- 
dience, of  rebeUion  against  God  who  avenges  all  such  affronts  to  his 
holiness  (Josh.  7:11;  I  Sam.  14 :  35  f .,  38 ;  15 :  24) .  This  is  the  pre- 
vailing conception  of  sin  in  the  Old  Testament  founded  upon  the 
social  mores,  given  supernatural  sanction  (I  Sam.  15:22;  Exod. 
21:1;  Deut.  4: 13,  14).  In  the  national  religion  in  which  the  con- 
ception of  Yahwe  was  better  co-ordinated  and  in  which  custom  and 
taboo  had  more  definitely  and  consciously  outlined  the  approach  to 
Yahwe,  every  breach  of  ritual  was  regarded  as  sin.  Yahwe  was 
to  be  approached  under  carefully  prescribed  conditions  of  ritual 
cleanness  (Gen.  35:2;  I  Sam.  6:19  f.;  7:1),  a  quality  not  ethically 
conditioned  but  physically  and  ritually  so,  a  quality  attainable  by 
a  man  (Gen.  35:2;  Exod.  iQiioff.),  by  an  object  (Exod.  30:37; 
I  Kings  7:51;  Lev.  17 :  10  ff.),  or  by  a  place  (I  Kings  8 : 64;  Exod. 
3:5),  in  equal  degree,  but  which  when  attained  efifectually  bars  its 
possessor  from  profane  or  common  life.  It  really  answers  the  pur- 
pose subserved  by  the  later  idea  of  property,  separating  by  its 
infectious  holiness  everything  belonging  to  Yahwe  and  his  service.*' 
Any  accidental  or  careless  disregard  of  the  divine  sanctity  reacted 
automatically  upon  the  offender,  as  in  the  case  of  Uzzah  and  of  the 
sons  of  Eli  (I  Sam.  2 :  12  f.).  The  fear  of  Yahwe  (Gen.  31 : 53)  was 
the  restraining  influence,  a  fear  so  real  that  a  sin  against  the  cult 
was  more  serious  than  moral  sin;  the  distinction  between  clean 
and  unclean  was  more  important  than  that  of  good  and  bad.  The 
earhest  customs  to  come  to  consciousness  were  those  relating  to 
sex  (Gen.  13:13;  18:20;  20:6;  34:7;  35:22,  cf.  49:3;  Judg.  19:23; 
20:6-10,  12  f.;  II  Sam.  12:13;  13*12),  to  blood  revenge  (Gen. 
4:10,    13-15,   23   ff.;   9:6;   42:22;    Exod.  21:14;  Judg.,  chap.  8; 

"0611.4:10  (J);  42:22  (E);  18:19;  31:49  f.;  38:1-10;  50:20;  Exod.  18:15  flf.; 
chap.  20;  21:14;  22:20  £F.;  chap.  34;  I  Sam.  20:42,  cf.  20:23;  H  Sam.  21:1-3. 

«  "Possession  is  not  property;  but  when  society  recognizes  one's  rights  to  a  thing 
and  undertakes  to  protect  him  in  that  right,  that  is  property." — Thomas  N.  Carver, 
"The  Economic  Basis  of  the  Problem  of  Evil,"  Harvard  Theological  Review,  1, 107. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  7 

II  Sam.  4:10-12),  to  hospitality^''  (Gen.  18:2  ff.;  chap.  19;  Judg. 
19:23;  I  Sam.  25:39),  and  to  property  (Gen.  31:32;  44:9;  Exod. 
21:22-26;  22:2-17;  II  Sam.  12:1-7,  131  I  Kings,  chap.  21).  An 
oath,  vow,  and  ban  were  especially  sacred  in  times  of  war  or  in 
national  danger,  their  breach  precipitating  pestilence,  famine,  and 
defeat  Qosh.,  chap.  7;  Judg.,  chap.  11;  I  Sam.,  chap.  14;  15:14  ff., 
21,  32  ff.).  So  direct  and  sure  was  the  vengeance  of  Yahwe  that 
it  had  the  aspect  of  the  automatic.  And  the  "  conception  of  inherent 
retribution  following  as  an  automatic  consequence  of  the  wrong  act 
lies  close  to  the  permanent  moral  consciousness  of  mankind,  closer 
than  the  alternative  theory,  that  of  pimishment  ab  extra,  since  it  is 
in  the  moral  order  itself."  ^^  No  one  can  read  the  narrative  of  the 
dramatic  discovery,  condemnation,  and  elimination  of  the  sin  of 
Jonathan  and  Achan  without  noting  the  completeness  with  which 
the  "consequences  of  the  act  are  referred  back  to  the  original 
impulse  and  enter  into  the  structure  of  consciousness."^^ 

Sin,  then,  has  no  fixed  content,  it  is  not  to  be  judged  by  an 
absolute  ethical  standard,  the  essential  thing  is  that  it  should 
function  in  the  fulfilment  or  organization  of  an  interest.  The 
point  is  not  the  ethical  value  of  the  custom  or  taboo,  it  may  be 
irrational  or  repellent  to  the  modem;  its  connection  with  the  life- 
processes  of  the  group  might  be  accidental,  due  to  the  limitations 
in  the  experience  of  man  and  to  the  confusion  of  intellectual  cate- 
gories. Sometimes  an  absurd  custom  or  an  act,  immoral  by  our 
standard,  is  "embedded  in  theUfe  of  the  people,  knit  together  with 
the  whole  body  of  memories  and  traditions,  carrying  as  well  as 
carried  by  the  customs  involved  in  the  whole  scheme  of  social  life. 
It  can  be  condemned  only  by  showing  how  obsolete  the  situation 
is."^'  Such,  for  example,  are  the  sex  cults  prevalent  in  the  Orient 
today,  and  such  were  the  sex  disabilities  connected  with  the 
ownership  of  women  current  among  the  Hebrews  during  the  Old 

^  "In  der  Ausiibung  des  Gastrechts  sah  man  ein  Gottesgebot,  in  der  Verletzung 
des  Gastxechts  wurde  die  Gottheit  beleidigt.  Die  grauenvolle  Art  auf  die  der  Mann 
der  zu  Tode  geschandeten  die  Schandtat  bekannt  macht  lasst  uns  die  furchtbare 
Erregung  nachfiihlen,  die  ihn  durchzittert.    Hos.  8 : 4." — Bennewitz,  p.  1 17. 

«  Hobhouse,  I,  53. 

">  J.  Dewey,  unpublished  lectures  on  the  "Evolution  of  Morality." 

"  Dewey,  unpublished  lectures. 


8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

Testament  period.  It  is  true  that  certain  acts,  such  as  murder, 
adultery,  stealing,  have  been  pretty  generally  condemned  as 
destructive  of  social  values,  but  it  is  just  this  human  experience 
which  proves  them  such.  Even  so,  they  have  to  be  redefined  and 
analyzed  in  every  new  social  situation.  The  concept  of  adultery 
has  varied  through  the  ages  in  accordance  with  the  sex  of  the  party 
concerned.  "Two  crimes  are  acknowledged  as  shameful  and  sins 
among  the  Arabs:  adultery  and  murder.  But  murder,  when  on 
a  raid  or  in  blood-revenge,  is  no  murder."  ^*  In  Israel  it  was  a  sin 
that  David  should  number  his  people  (II  Sam,,  chap.  24),  but 
it  was  right  that  Jephthah  should  offer  his  daughter  in  payment 
of  a  vow  (Judg.  ii:34ff.),  or  that  Abraham  should  sacrifice 
Isaac  (Gen.,  chap.  22).  "The  habit  of  cleanhness  is  so  ingrained 
into  the  Japanese  character  that  in  Shinto  actual  personal  dirt  is 
more  than  moral  guilt.  To  be  dirty  is  to  be  disrespectful  to  the 
gods."^'  Here  cleanliness  has  become  an  object  of  attention  in 
itself,  the  social  expression  of  the  fulfilment  of  an  interest.  Per- 
sonal dirt  creates,  then,  a  moral  situation  just  as  a  breach  of 
taboo,  a  harmless  thing  in  itself,  was  found  to  have  done. 

II 

The  period  of  the  prophets  brought  the  fundamental  recon- 
struction of  attitudes  and  habits,  the  occasion  of  change  being 
emigration  into  new  natural  environment  and  conflict  with  a  nation 
whose  methods  of  warfare  were  more  developed  and  whose  civili- 
zation presented  new  needs,  new  desires,  new  ends.  The  read- 
justment issued  at  first  in  a  disorder  marked  by  the  breaking-down 
of  the  old  mores  without  a  conscious  adoption  of  the  new — "every 
man  did  that  which  was  right  in  his  own  eyes,"  by  the  use  of  indi- 
vidual wit  and  judgment.  After  the  first  stage  of  settlement  and 
of  local  conquest,  organization  became  the  demand  of  the  new  fife 
both  for  internal  order  and  for  external  conquest.  With  the  suc- 
cessful wars  of  the  king,  treasures  began  to  pour  into  the  kingdom, 
followed  by  a  rapid  development  of  trade  by  land  and  by  sea 
(I  Kings  5:25;  9:265.;  10:11  f.,  28  f.;  Hos.  12:6;  Isa.  30:6; 
I  Kings  9:18,  cf.  II  Chron.  8:9).  That  the  rapid  development 
produced  conflict  is  shown  by  the  rise  of  political  parties  and  the 

**  Curtiss,  p.  124. 

'» Quoted  from  Irving  King,  The  Development  of  Religion,  p.  112. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  9 

frequency  of  revolution  each  backed  by  a  special  interest.  The 
importation  of  foreign  goods,  foreign  ideas  and  manners  also 
made  luxury,  self-indulgence,  power,  and  wealth  the  great  ends 
in  life.  In  the  scramble  for  these,  class  feeling  and  personal  injustice 
displaced  the  old  equahty  and  love  of  freedom  (Amos  5:10-12; 
Hos.  4:2),  which  had  been  emphasized  anew  at  the  formation  of 
the  Northern  Kingdom.  Shameless  exercise  of  power,  inequality 
before  the  law,  disregard  of  contract,  and  commercial  fraud  made 
social  and  economic  questions  difficult,  the  free,  virtuous,  and 
beautiful  activities  of  life  impossible  for  the  poorer  and  weaker 
classes.  Oppression  and  extortion  marked  the  attitude  of  the  one, 
the  urgency  and  necessity  of  mere  living  characterized  the  other; 
the  enjoyment  and  profits  of  trade  had  been  appropriated  by  the 
one,  the  burdens  of  long  and  continuous  war  bore  heavily  upon 
the  other;  the  rich  were  adding  field  to  field  (Isa.  5 :8  f.),  the  small 
landowners  were  being  sold  into  slavery  for  debt;  the  oppressors 
were  making  good  with  the  judges  by  bribes,  the  case  of  the  weak 
was  being  thrown  out  of  court;  the  rich  were  dissipating  their  Kves 
in  feastings  and  frivolities  and  corrupting  practices  at  the  high 
places;  the  poor  went  naked  and  unfed.  That  really  happened 
which  has  repeatedly  happened  in  the  progress  of  nations:  the 
indi\ddual  reacted  more  quickly  than  society  was  able  to  do,  with 
the  result  that  the  individual  best  fitted  to  do  so  had  survived  in 
the  struggle,  those  disadvantaged  had  gone  to  the  wall.  In  north 
Israel,  revolution  had  kept  the  balance  by  weakening  the  central 
government  until  commercial  Hfe  had  developed  a  new  group  prin- 
ciple. Those  who  failed  in  the  struggle  fell  into  the  inferior  status 
of  slave  with  the  loss  of  dvil  rights,  such  as  the  right  to  hold  prop- 
erty (even  their  own  wives  and  children — Exod.  21:4),  right  of 
marriage,  and  the  right  of  personal  freedom.  Those  who  succeeded 
became  leaders,  masters,  independent  of  the  group,  and  serving  or 
using  the  group  at  will.  This  disorganization  of  society  incapaci- 
tated the  government  at  the  time  when  coherence  and  unity  were 
necessary  for  the  political  salvation  of  the  state.  With  no  well- 
developed  doctrine  of  rewards  in  a  future  life  and  with  the  burning 
sense  of  injustice  on  the  part  of  the  suffering  poor,  supplemented 
by  the  enervation  of  character  resulting  from  the  sudden  attain- 


lO  TEE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

ment  of  wealth  on  the  part  of  the  rich,  there  was  no  inspiring 
incentive  for  the  common  man  to  cope  with  an  enemy  whose  num- 
bers, organization,  and  zeal  had  changed  the  map  of  the  then 
known  worid. 

During  this  period,  the  worship  of  Yahwe  was  enriched  by  the 
appropriation  of  the  Canaanite  high  places  with  their  mazzebahs, 
asherahs,  and  round  of  agricultural  feasts  and  magic  practices  asso- 
ciated from  time  immemorial  with  Baal  and  his  female  complement. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  forms  of  worship  at  the  high  places  had  the 
closest  possible  connection  with  the  old  Semitic  forms  found  in 
Phoenicia,  Arabia,  and  Babylonia^"  and  took  their  origin  in  the 
animistic  concept  of  the  Semites  to  whom  the  mutilations,  dances, 
feasts,  ecstasies,  and  sacred  prostitutes  connoted  certain  social 
values  of  fertihty,  power,  and  well-being  (I  Kings  12:24;  Amos 
2:7;  Hos.  4:13;  Deut.  23:17,  18)."  Reactionary  movements  ap- 
peared in  the  cult  when  Saul  sought  to  suppress  witchcraft  and 
necromancy  (I  Sam.  28:9),  when  Jerubbaal  threw  down  the  altars 
of  Baal  (Judg.  6:25-31),  and  when  Asa  deposed  the  queen  mother 
for  making  an  image  of  Astarte  (II  Kings  I5:i2f.).  A  definite 
change  in  attitude  toward  Baalism  was  registered  in  the  reaction 
led  by  Elijah  in  which  the  exclusive  principle  resident  in  Yahwe 
gained  historical  embodiment.  It  was  a  conflict  between  the  type 
represented  by  the  desert  and  that  represented  by  the  new  land 
of  agriculture,  of  commercial  and  pohtical  alliances:  a  conflict 
between  registered  values  in  symbols  in  which  the  concept  of  Yahwe 
as  the  god  of  war  and  of  justice,  the  champion  of  the  weak,  the 
oppressed,  the  widow,  the  orphan,  and  the  stranger,  was  welded 
with  the  concept  of  exclusiveness,  just  because  both  concepts  were 
sufficiently  vital  to  the  needs  of  the  situation  to  prevail.  The  prob- 
lems of  life  which  pressed  hardest  upon  the  nation  were  no  longer 

*»  The  Semitic  material  first  gathered  by  Robertson  Smith  from  literary  sources 
has  found  abundant  illustration  both  in  the  Semitic  customs  existent  among  the  Arabs 
today  and  in  the  tablets  brought  to  light  by  modem  explorations.  For  the  interpre- 
tation of  Deut.  24:8  ff.,  see  Schwally,  KriegesalterthUmer,  I,  81  fi. 

"  The  worship  of  Astarte,  the  goddess  of  fertility,  was  as  characteristic  of  the 
Semitic  race  as  its  language.  Cf.  Dr.  George  A.  Barton,  A  Sketch  of  Semitic  Origins; 
Sellin,  Tell  Ta'annek,  Wien,  1904;  Bliss  and  Macalister,  Excavations  in  Palestine 
igo2;  Palestine  Exploration  Fund  Quarterly  Statement,  1904,  pp.  229  ff. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  P  RE-EXILIC  PERIOD  ii 

those  connected  with  an  animistic  view  of  nature.  The  impas- 
sioned words  of  Amos,  Hosea,  and  Micah  ring  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  new  values  and  the  claim  of  new  spiritual  and  fundamental 
necessities.  Justice  was  the  demand  of  the  hour;  to  oppress  the 
poor  with  violence  and  to  retain  the  favor  of  Yahwe  by  providing 
a  pilgrimage  or  a  feast  at  the  high  places  (Amos  2:8;  4:4;  5:52.; 
Hos.  6:1-3;  13:2  ff.;  Isa.  1:21-23;  3:13  ff.)  was  repugnant  to 
the  moral  sense  of  the  prophet,  and,  we  may  well  beheve,  to  the 
moral  sense  of  others  also.  Ethical  standards  in  commerce  were 
gradually  shaping  themselves  to  meet  the  necessities  of  business 
enterprise.  The  need  and  value  of  honesty,  veracity,  just  balances, 
and  keeping  faith  are  traceable  in  the  prophets  who  studied  the 
field  and  in  numbers  of  proverbs  culled  from  trade,  such  as  "a  false 
balan/:e  is  an  abominarion  to  the  Lord,  but  a  jxist  weight  is  his 
deUght"  (Prov.  ii:i;  16:11;  3:27,  29,  31;  10:4;  11:3,4,5;  22:1, 
7,  22  f.).  A  trade  like  that  of  Solomon's  with  Egj^pt  and  the 
provinces  in  Asia  Minor  could  not  have  been  built  up  upon  mere 
shrewdness  in  bargaining.  The  code  of  Hammurabi  has  a  series 
of  elaborate  laws  controlling  trade  by  boat  and  caravan.  It 
governs  business  relations  between  the  merchant  who  is  the 
principal  and  his  agent  who  goes  off  to  seek  the  market  (§§101-7); 
it  regulates  warehouses  (§§  122-25),  deposits  of  interest  on  money 
(§§49,  50,  100),  debts  (§§  115-17),  sales  (§§  35,  278-79),  and  hire 
(§228).  Such  laws  in  Israel  would  connect  with  those  fixing 
responsibihty  for  loss  in  case  of  loan  or  guardianship  (Exod.  22: 

7-15)- 

The  standard  of  purity  for  women  had  developed  so  that  the 
demands  of  the  cult  at  the  high  places  had  grown  offensive  to  the 
better  class  of  citizens  (Gen.  38 :  20  f . ;  Isa.  3 :  16 — 4 :  i ;  Hos.  2:1-13; 
4:10-14;  Deut.  23:18;  IKings  14:24;  15:12^;  II  Kings  23:7), 
the  natural  elements  being  calculable  in  so  far  as  to  bring  the  fer- 
tility of  the  earth  more  or  less  under  himian  control.  In  other 
words,  the  cult  at  the  high  places  had  broken  loose  from  life  and 
was  being  developed  as  an  end  in  itself,  for  true  reUgion  had  left  it 
behind  as  a  survival  of  the  outworn,  a  very  obstacle  to  morals  and 
to  religion."    It  was  like  the  sex  cults  of  the  Orient  today  which 

"  Alfred  Bertholet,  Kommentar  zu  DeuteroTiomium,  p.  xiii. 


12  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

are  outworn  and  yet  have  never  been  reinterpreted  into  the  life 
and  thought  of  the  people.  The  primary  reUgious  need  of  the 
times  was  the  destruction  of  the  high  places  and  the  extirpation  of 
the  animistic  powers,  a  need  which  the  priests  must  have  felt  as 
forcibly  as  the  prophets. 

The  prophet  of  the  eighth  century  organized  these  indi- 
vidual interests  into  an  interest  of  the  community.  He  caught 
up  the  great  values  of  his  day,  right  and  justice,  and  created 
a  definite  active  attitude  toward  them  upon  the  part  of  the 
community.  No  doubt  the  original  incentive  to  this  activity 
was  given  by  the  disaster  threatening  the  state.  Yahwe,  the 
national  god,  was  angry  with  his  people;  such  serious  misfortune 
awaited  them  that  national  sin  was  indicated.  That  sin  would 
be  found  in  the  moral  realm  is  not  unique  to  the  Hebrew  prophet. 
A  similar  consciousness  of  injustice,  dishonesty,  violence,  and 
oppression  as  sin  is  found  in  the  Shur-pu  tablets  of  Babylonia^^  and 
in  the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead.^'*  The  unique  thing  in  Israel 
is  that  our  prophet  connected  moraHty  with  the  element  of  ex- 
clusiveness;  he  conserved  the  internal  and  the  external  interests 
by  welding  the  concept  of  a  national  god  and  that  of  a  world  god 
into  an  organic  whole.  To  Amos  the  ritual  ceremonies  were  not 
only  evil  but  the  cult  as  performed  was  hateful  to  Yahwe;  it  was  no 
longer  a  means  of  communication  between  God  and  man.  That 
more  important  to  Yahwe  is  to  do  justice  and  to  practice  mercy 
and  truth  (Amos  5:21-24;  Hos.  6:6,  cf.  10:12;  Isa.  i:ii  iff.;  29: 
13;  Mic.  6:6-8;  Jer.  7:21-28).  Commercial  wrongs  were  not 
matters  of  business  only,  having  no  bearing  upon  religion ;  they  are 
of  the  greatest  concern  to  God,  more  important  than  taboo  or 
ritual.  In  other  words,  the  moral  issues  have  become  so  paramount 
that  Amos  swings  the  moral  into  the  place  heretofore  assumed  by 
the  ritual  and  by  this  change  of  emphasis  he  conserves  the  new 
social  values  evolved  and  gives  to  the  religion  of  Israel  that  unique 
ethical  quahty  which  differentiates  it  from  the  religions  of  Phoeni- 
cia, Canaan,  and  Arabia.     Hosea  discerns  the  real  character  of  the 

*3  H.  Zimmem,  Babylonische  Busspsaitnen  umschrieben,  ubersetzt  und  erklSrt,  1885, 
and  Babylonische  Hymnen  und  Gebele,  Leipzig,  1905. 

**  £.  A.  Budge,  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  London,  1898, 1901. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  P RE-EXILIC  PERIOD  13 

worship  at  the  high  places  to  be  BaaUsm.  Their  idols  (3:1;  4:17), 
images  (8 : 4  f . ;  11:2;  13:2),  the  whole  apparatus  of  the  high  places 
(4:8,  13!.;  8:11-13;  13:1),  partake  of  the  spirit  of  whoredom 
(1:2;  2:4-7;  4:11,12,15,18;  5:3,4,7;  6:10;  9:1;  11:7).  Baal 
is  the  false  lover  who  has  led  Israel  astray,  the  representative  of 
nature  and  the  animistic,  natural  powers.  With  this  allegory  of 
marriage  Hosea  gets  a  purchase  whereby  he  can  oppose  Yahwe  to 
Baal  and  bring  the  consciousness  of  the  moral  laws  to  the  common 
man.  Not  only  is  Yahwe  different  in  character  from  Baal  but  true 
religion  partakes  of  a  mystic  and  pietistic  character;  it  is  an  inner 
relation  of  faith,  loyalty,  and  truth.  Isaiah  develops  this  rela- 
tionship to  mean  that  every  lack  of  confidence  in  Yahwe,  every 
feeling  of  pride,  haughtiness,  and  disbehef  is  sin  (1:2;  2:6-22; 
3:8-i6f.;  7:3;  10:6  ff.,  15,  33  f.;  22:8-11;  31:7)  against  the 
holy  and  exalted  Lord  God  of  Hosts  (Isa.  5:16;  chap.  6;  30:18). 
A  mere  ecclesiastic  insistence  upon  the  exclusive  principle  resident 
in  Yahwe  would  not  have  affected  the  people  at  large^^  had  not 
the  new  movement  in  Yahwism  been  representative  of  the  new 
social  and  ethical  values.  It  was  the  concept  of  social  justice  that 
stirred  the  social  judgment  and  will  and  that  fused  religion  with 
moraHty  into  a  union  more  organic  than  that  existent  among  other 
oriental  peoples. 

Israel  did  not  come  to  the  concept  of  monotheism  by  the  way 
of  speculation.  Like  beHef  in  the  future  state,  the  thought  of 
Yahwe  as  a  world  god  was  the  working  rule  for  the  solution  of  a 
practical  difficulty.  The  interests  of  Israel,  commercial  and  other- 
wise, had  led  her  among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  The  temple  of 
Yahwe  at  Elephantine  and  Leontopolis  and  the  custom  of  making 
contracts  show  that  Yahwe,  like  the  good  mother  of  the  modem 
home,  had  to  cross  the  threshold  of  his  own  land  in  order  to  con- 
serve the  welfare  and  interests  of  his  children.  Now  that  Canaan 
was  the  arena  of  the  struggle  for  empire  and  now  that  her  highest 
interests  were  identified  with  the  estabhshment  of  the  moral,  these 
external  and  internal  interests  could  be  achieved  only  by  a  god  able 
to  cope  with  the  world-forces  outside  of  his  own  territory.     For 

's  Cf.  the  ecclesiastic  reform  of  Pharaoh  Amenophis  IV. — ^Adolf  Erroan,  Aegyp- 
tische  Religion,  Berlin,  1905,  pp.  67-69. 


14  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

while  he  was  no  longer  indissolubly  connected  with  Israel  through 
physical  kinship,  he  was  indissolubly  identified  with  her  supreme 
interests.  If  he  could  not  conserve  these,  he  would  be  superseded 
as  a  god.  But  loss  of  nationahty  did  not  necessarily  involve  the 
loss  of  Israel's  supreme  interests;  disaster  regarded  as  punishment 
would  rather  indicate  its  use  as  a  corrective  leading  to  heaHng  and 
restoration.  Thus  the  moraKzation  of  the  national  god  and  his 
identification  with  the  world-god  are  the  evolution  of  the  same 
historic  crises;  they  were  the  center  of  attention,  of  the  national 
consciousness,  at  the  same  time.  Once  obtained,  this  concept  of 
Yahwe  would  find  support  in  all  the  activities  heretofore  ascribed 
to  him;  the  fact  that  he  was  not  identified  with  a  symbol,  that  he 
was  located  in  the  heavens,  and  that  he  ruled  over  nature  would 
strengthen  the  h5^othesis  until,  like  a  scientific  theory,  its  truth 
was  beHeved  to  have  been  demonstrable.  The  prophets,  as  the 
intellectual  and  religious  leaders  of  the  race,  were  the  men  of  faith 
who  tried  to  make  Israel  good  by  the  elimination  of  evil,  who  taught 
the  ultimate  conservation  of  all  values,  through  the  acceptance  of 
moral  truth,  promising  that  in  the  future  "every  man  shall  sit 
under  his  own  vine  and  fig  tree  and  none  shall  molest  them  or  make 
them  afraid." 

in 

The  work  of  fusion,  however,  was  not  that  of  an  hour  or  of  a 
day.  The  public  preaching  of  the  prophet  was  followed  by  the 
formulation  of  the  prophetic  ideas  in  writing,  the  rewriting  of  the 
patriarchal  stories,  the  interpretation  of  history  from  the  new  point 
of  view,  and  the  development  of  law  as  a  standard  of  duty  and  of 
rights,  for  civil  rights  become  effective  only  when  enforced  or 
redressed.  In  the  pregnant  phrase  of  Aristotle,  the  administration 
of  justice  is  also  its  determination,^^  that  is,  its  discovery  and  pro- 
mulgation. The  conflict  of  interests  that  arose  during  the  prophetic 
period  could  be  settled  only  by  the  clearer  formulation  of  legal 
details.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  "the  fear  of  Yahwe"  is  no  substitute 
for  the  courts.  The  Deuteronomists  attempted  to  collect  the  laws 
which  were  effective  in  the  community  in  their  time  and  to  modify 

*  "The  principles  of  legal  justice  are  not  due  to  crude  legislation  but  to  the  con- 
tinuous and  co-operative  attempts  at  doing  Justice  in  concrete  cases.  Principles  are 
judgemade." — S.  P.  Mezes,  Ethics,  Descriptive  and  Explanatory,  p.  306. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  15 

these  in  so  far  as  the  reform  in  the  cult  and  the  higher  ideals  of  justice 
demanded  (Deut.  30 : 1 1-14)  .^  They  preserved  the  traditions  of  the 
law  in  the  various  strata  reaching  back  to  the  agricultural  and 
nomadic  period  by  the  publication^^  of  the  new  contributions  as 
an  essential  part  of  the  Mosaic  code.  (See  Appendix  B,  p.  22.) 
Despite  the  fact  that  Deuteronomy  is  a  compilation,  it  makes  a 
substantial  contribution  to  justice  and  reform.  In  the  legal  reform 
of  the  cult,  the  new  Yahwism  allied  itself  with  all  the  reactionary 
forces  in  rehgion,  with  the  assertion  of  monotheism  against  every- 
thing foreign,  immoral,  animistic,  and  BaaUstic.  The  extirpation 
of  foreign  cults  (13 : 1-9;  17 : 2-7),  asherahs  and  mazzebahs  (16:  i  f.; 
12:3;  7:5),  mourning  rites  (14:1  f.),  all  kinds  of  divinations, 
magic  (18 :  10  f.),  and  Moloch  worship  (12:31;  18: 10)  are  demanded 
with  "sanguinary  thoroughness.'"'  The  reform  was  ineffective  in 
breaking  up  the  popular  use  of  idols  as  shown  in  the  later  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  in  the  recent  Aramaic  finds  in  Egyptian 
excavations. 3°  The  moral  did,  however,  gradually  cast  out  the 
unethical,  modif}dng  or  reinterpreting  all  the  practices  in  which 
rehgion  was  formerly  expressed,  such  as  the  covenant,  circum- 
cision, clean  and  imclean.  Thus  the  ciilt  was  removed  as  an 
obstacle  to  the  higher  reUgious  development.  Idolatry  becomes, 
then,  a  breach  of  the  law  of  Yahwe  and  an  offense  against  the  law 
of  the  state,  to  be  pimished  by  the  total  destruction  of  the  city  or 
the  individual  practicing  it. 

»^  Karl  Steuemagel,  Kommentar  zu  DaUeronomium,  pp.  x  ff . 

**  It  is  manifest  that  the  knowledge  of  law  by  the  people  would  be  one  of  the 
strongest  elements  in  the  maintenance  of  impartiality  in  judgment  and  in  the  uphold- 
ing of  the  innocent  in  their  rights:  cf.  the  purpose  of  publication  avowed  in  the  pro- 
logue to  the  code  of  Hammurabi:  "That  the  great  should  not  oppress  the  weak,  to 
coimsel  the  widow  and  orphan,  to  render  judgment  and  decide  the  decisions  of  the 
land  and  to  succor  the  injured  ....  that  the  oppressed  who  has  a  suit  to  prosecute 
may  come  to  my  image,  that  of  a  royal  king,  and  read  my  inscription  and  imderstand 
my  precious  words  and  may  my  stele  elucidate  his  case"  (cf.  Deut.  31:9-13;  6:6-9, 
20-25;  11:18-29). 

«  G.  F.  Moore,  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  article  "Deuteronomy,"  p.  1093. 

^  "Man  kann  allenfalls  fiinf  Gotter  aus  den  Papyri  herauslesen;  zwei,  j5ho  imd 
Herembethel  sind  bezeugt,  xmd  'Anat-Bethel,  'Anat-Jaho  und  I§ima  ( ?)-Bethel  konnen 
als  Gotter  gedeutet  werden  (cf.  Jer.,  chap.  44)." — Aramaische  Papyrus  und  Osiraka 
aus  Elephantine,  bearbeitet  von  £d.  Sachau,  p.  zzvi. 


i6  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

Public  punishment,^^  originally  reserved  for  acts  shocking  to 
public  conscience  (I  Kings  21:9,  13,  21;  Exod.  22:28,  cf.  Lev.  24: 
10  ff.,  16;  Job  2:9),  especially  in  times  of  community  danger,  such 
as  war  (Gen.  34:30;  Judg.,  chap.  19,  esp.  vs.  30;  Judg.,  chap.  20; 
Josh.,  chap.  7;  Deut.  23:9  fif.;  I  Sam.,  chap.  14;  II  Sam.  21:51!.), 
now  includes  injury  to  the  person  (17:8-13,  cf.  19:18;  II  Chron. 
19:8-11),  to  the  property,  or  to  the  reputation  (22:13-21).  (See 
Appendix  C,  p.  24.)  Justice  dispensed  in  order  to  force  a  settle- 
ment of  quarrels  or  feuds  grown  dangerous  to  the  community  now 
attempts  an  impartial  decision  (16:18-20;  25:1;  27:25)  between 
the  rights  and  claims  of  different  claimants  .^^  Judgment  by  means 
of  ordeal"  or  by  the  pronouncement  of  a  magical  decision  has  come 
to  rest  upon  testimony  as  to  the  facts  in  the  case  (Deut.  19: 15-21; 
17:6),  the  number  and  responsibiUty  of  the  witnesses  being  fixed  by 
law.  "Although  there  was  still  a  blur  of  justice  and  injustice,  an 
undeniable  effort  was  made  to  reaUze  justice  by  overcoming  fraud, 
bribery,  and  partiality."  Life  is  to  be  protected  instead  of  merely 
countenancing  retaliation^'*  (19 : 1-13 ;  21 : 1-9) ;  rights  are  generally 
recognized  which  had  been  claimed  only  by  individuals  and  enforced 
by  superior  strength  (24:16,  cf.  Jer.  31:29;  Ezek.  18:4).  Great 
ideals  of  personal  conduct  were  conceived,  such  as  justice,  good- 
will, loyalty,  and  love  (10:18 — 11  :i).  Character,  the  attitude  or 
subjective  disposition  of  a  man,  becomes  the  subject  of  moral 
judgment.  The  magico-animistic  basis  of  obligation  is  discarded; 
duties  and  rights  attach  to  members  of  society  as  such  or  are  based 
upon  the  voluntary  covenant  with  Yahwe  and  his  demands  in 
presence  of  the  national  danger.  Thus  a  sentiment  against  the 
commission  of  certain  social  and  religious  crimes  was  growing  at 

3'  "The  bulk  of  acts  which  infringe  the  right  of  other  men  are  not,  strictly  speak- 
ing, acts  regarded  as  inherently  wrong  but  as  legitimate  occasions  for  vengeance  to 
be  inflicted  by  the  sufferer  and  his  kinsfolk,  if  strong  enough  to  do  so." — Hobhouse, 
11,  73- 

3'  For  the  establishment  of  justice  between  man  and  man,  two  things  are  requisite, 
an  authoritative  law  on  the  one  hand,  and  an  authoritative  tribunal  on  the  other. 

J  J  "The  survival  of  even  one  case  of  ordeal  by  holy  water  leaves  no  doubt  as  to 
the  sense  of  the  'fountain  of  judgment'  (En-mishpat)  or  'waters  of  controversy' 
(Meribah),  Gen.  14:7;  Exod.  15:25,  where  Moses  decided  the  cases  too  hard  for  the 
tribal  judges." — W.  R.  Smith,  The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  pp.  179  ff. 

M  Dewey  and  Tufts,  chap,  vi;  Hobhouse,  chap,  iii  and  appendix  to  chap.  iii. 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  17 

the  very  time  when  the  captivity  and  the  fall  of  Jerusalem,  by 
prohibiting  sacrifice  and  ritual,  emphasized  the  moral  values  and 
the  subjective  disposition.  Repentance,  obedience,  and  recon- 
ciliation became  the  study  of  the  exile  with  the  purpose  of  putting 
away  a  lower  past  and  readjusting  Ufe  to  meet  an  ideal  good. 
Responsibility  for  the  stern  enforcement  of  these  laws  with  the 
fear  of  divine  retribution  created  at  last  the  sense  of  sin  at  their 
breach  with  the  result  scarcely  anticipated  by  the  prophets,  that 
of  fixing  the  will  of  Yahwe  in  a  written  law. 

Conduct  came  to  be  tested  by  a  standard,  by  conformity  to  a 
hard  and  fast  rule,  rather  than  being  a  "matter  of  spirit  and  of 
constant  reconstruction  "^^  ^nd  Uberation  of  spirit  as  Jeremiah 
(31 :3i,  34)  and  Jesus  conceived  it  to  be.  Sin  is  a  term  used,  then, 
for  those  acts  contrary  to  the  moral  order  of  himian  society,  the 
punishment  of  which  is  gradually  assumed  by  the  courts  and  which 
is  known  to  modern  law  as  crime  or  tort.  Sin,  in  this  sense,  is  the 
infringement  of  individual  interests  upon  the  totality  of  interests, 
a  refusal  to  recognize  social  duties  and  obligations.  Just  because 
the  Jews  became  a  religious  body  within  a  political  state,  a  con- 
fusion of  legal  with  moral  guilt  arose.  The  sense  of  sin  at  the 
breach  of  law  became  so  great  that  a  professional  class  of  inter- 
preters of  the  law  arose  and  the  law  finally  displaced  the  cult  as 
the  center  of  Judaistic  rehgion.  At  the  same  time  that  this  dis- 
tinction of  sin  as  an  objective  act  was  being  emphasized,  sin  became 
also  the  disposition,  attitude,  or  evil  will  back  of  the  act.  This 
element  of  ethical  inwardness  in  the  prophets  was  taken  up  by 
Christianity  into  the  concept  of  the  ''outgoing,  objectifying, 
socially  effective  attitude  of  will  which  proved  a  man's  motive  or 
his  sinfulness.  "^^ 

In  this  study,  then,  the  primitive  meaning  of  sin  "to  miss  the 
mark"  is  to  fail  in  achieving  an  immediate  or  ulterior  interest  with 
reference  to  which  action  is  performed.  This  identifies  itself  with 
a  certain  definite  social  feeUng  aroused  by  the  breach  of  custom 
and  taboo,  just  because  custom  and  taboo  hedge  about  the  con- 
spicuous points  of  failure.    The  authority  of  custom  lay  in  its 

35  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics,  p.  103. 

3*  E.  S.  Ames,  The  Psychology  of  Religion,  p.  189. 


l8  THE  AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  THEOLOGY 

appeal  to  human  experience ;  its  lack  of  finality  in  the  interpretation 
of  that  experience  as  the  work  of  magical  and  wilful  natural  powers 
and  in  the  fact  that  no  discrimination  was  made  between  moral 
and  physical  evils.  The  first  human  values  to  evolve  were  health, 
fertility,  prosperity,  victory  in  battle;  the  sense  of  sin  was  focused 
at  the  breach  of  those  primitive  customs  which  imperiled  these 
values,  such  as  the  customs  relating  to  sex,  blood-revenge,  hospi- 
taUty,  and  property,  or  at  the  breach  of  the  ritual  through  which 
the  mysterious  will  of  Yahwe  might  be  appeased.  We  have  traced 
the  growth  of  interest  to  include  social  justice,  good  will,  and  moral 
service.  Perhaps  the  early  control  of  nature  by  the  Hebrews  is 
discernible  in  their  repudiation  of  the  magical,  animistic  powers  of 
fertility  and  in  the  ascription  to  Yahwe  of  control  over  the  heavenly 
bodies  (Gen.  i:i6;  2:1;  Judg.  5:20;  Isa.  40:26;  Job  38:7;  Deut. 
6: 19;  Jer.  10: 2)  and  the  change  of  seasons  (Hos.  2 :8,  21 ;  Isa.  1:3). 
Society  formed  and  reformed  its  values  according  to  the  fimda- 
mental  necessities  of  the  environment  and  according  to  the  ends 
and  interests  which  it  was  called  upon  to  sustain.  Custom  grew 
up  to  conserve  these  new  interests  and  values  and  conscience  devel- 
oped in  determining  the  significance  of  new  habits  to  society.  All 
sin  is  sin  against  God,  not  so  much  because  God  is  the  protector 
of  right  as  because  he  is  a  moral  personality  whose  purpose  is  become 
the  national  purpose,  that  of  a  thoroughgoing  establishment  of  the 
moral  in  Israel  and  the  world. 

The  conception  of  misfortune  as  punishment  for  sin  has  under- 
gone all  the  transformations  characteristic  of  social  justice.  Origi- 
nally every  misfortune  was  the  punishment  of  Yahwe  upon  a  sin 
against  himself,  be  that  sin  intentional  or  accidental,  known  or 
unknown.  At  first,  it  was  only  a  working  rule  representative  of 
a  crude  sort  of  justice  by  a  power  which  was  impulsive,  jealous, 
and  vengeful.  That  was  p"''^?  which  conformed  to  certain  objec- 
tive standards,  without  regard  to  the  ethical  element  in  the  case." 
Later,  as  the  concept  of  justice  developed  away  from  the  principle 
of  revenge  toward  that  of  retribution,  bringing  back  to  the  agent 
the  evil  consequences  of  his  deed,  the  basis  of  judgment  was  more 

3'  Emil  Kautzsch,  Ueber  die  Derivate  des  Stammes  pHS  im  AUtesiatnentlichen 
Sprachgebrauch,  Tubingen,  1881. 


-tfT*' 


HEBREW  SENSE  OF  SIN  IN  PRE-EXILIC  PERIOD  19 

carefully  interrogated.  As  we  have  tried  to  show,  it  was  in  the 
struggle  for  legal  and  social  justice  and  in  the  endeavor  to  conserve 
the  highest  interests  of  Israel  that  the  prophets  fused  morality 
with  reUgion  and  welded  the  national  god  with  the  world-god.  Sin 
and  punishment  are  not  two  heterogeneous  things,  but  hang  to- 
gether in  the  closest  subjective  relations,  as  Hosea  and  Jeremiah 
have  shown.  Sin  is  its  own  punishment.  It,  itself,  separates  from 
God.  The  history  of  Israel  is  worked  through  from  this  point  of 
view,  the  rise  and  fall  of  nations  are  explained  through  the  out- 
working of  moral  justice.  Its  application  to  the  individual  is  more 
difficult,  but  practical  difficulties  did  not  disturb  the  faith  in  God 
nor  the  prestige  of  morality.  For  when  the  comparative  fate  of  the 
individual  was  felt  to  be  inexpHcable  upon  the  basis  of  conduct, 
another  world  was  posited  in  which  justice  might  restore  the 
balance  of  disturbed  law  by  rewards  and  punishments  after  death. 


APPENDIX  A 

The  growth  of  law  and  justice  is  pretty  closely  connected  in  its  several 
stages  with  the  forms  of  social  organization  and  in  so  far  may  be  termed 
political.  But  political  justice  is  based  upon  ethical  justice,  and  no  study 
in  comparative  ethics  indicates  more  decisively  the  stage  of  moral  develop- 
ment. In  tribal  society,  two  sources  of  redress  are  discernible,  one  public, 
the  other  private  in  character.  The  classification  of  public  offenses  by  Stein- 
metz  (M.  Steinmetz,  "Classification  des  types  sociaux  et  catalogue  des 
peuples,"  Annie  sociologique,  1898-99,  165  f.)  are  witchcraft,  incest,  treason, 
and  sacrilege.  These  were  held  to  involve  the  community  as  a  whole  in 
misfortune  and  danger,  the  object  of  the  community  in  exterminating  the 
criminal  being  not  so  much  the  punishment  of  the  man  as  the  protection  of 
the  group  from  danger  (Judg.  19:20;  Jos.  7;  I  Sam.  28:9).  For  the  redress 
of  private  wrongs  primitive  society  had  no  adequate  organization.  All  per- 
sonal wrongs  were  matters  for  private  vengeance,  although  it  was  to  the  interest 
of  the  avenger  to  have  public  opinion  on  his  side.  Revenge  or  retaliation 
rested  upon  the  solidarity  of  the  kindred,  since  the  blood-feud  was  retribution 
exercised  by  a  family  or  clan  upon  a  family  or  clan  (Judg.  8 :  18  ff . ;  II  Sam.  3 : 
27-30;  13:28,  32  ff.)  at  the  cost  to  society  of  the  permanency  of  the  feud 
and  the  individual  responsibility  for  crime.  In  many  cases  where  a  settle- 
ment of  disputes  by  the  elders  or  by  the  sheik  is  spoken  of,  it  is  merely  sub- 
sidiary to  self-help,  the  real  basis  of  order  being  the  blood-feud.  Public 
intervention,  in  anticipation  or  mitigation  of  private  redress,  would  de- 
pend upon  the  authority  of  the  chief  to  maintain  order  and  enforce  punish- 
ment. Disputes  might  be  settled  by  a  palaver,  as  the  settlement  of  the  strife 
between  the  herdmen  of  Abram  and  those  of  Lot  over  the  wells  (Gen.  13 : 7  f.; 
21:25-31;  cf.  Gen.  26:2off.,  28,  32),  by  an  organized  duel,  as  that  between 
David  and  Goliath,  or  by  the  prescription  of  a  test  wholly  unrelated  to  the 
facts  at  issue  as  in  the  ordeal,  the  use  of  the  curse  or  oath.  These  latter 
were  conceived  as  an  appeal  to  the  judgment  of  God  or  to  powers  which  take 
vengeance  upon  those  who  swear  falsely  (Exod.  18:13-26;  I  Kings  18:31  f.; 
Num.  11:16  ff.)  and  were  probably  in  the  hand  of  the  priest  (Num.  5:11  ff., 
19).  Israelite  tradition  regards  the  principle  of  revenge  as  Godgiven  and 
carried  it  back  to  the  beginnings  of  clan  and  family  life  when  Cain  was  promised 
sevenfold  vengeance  for  injury  (Gen.  4:15;  cf.  9:6);  even  Lamech's  song 
bespeaks  brutal  revenge  and  yet  a  feeling  of  justice  or  right  (Gen.  4:23  f.). 
Examples  of  vengeance  may  be  multiplied  throughout  the  history  of  Israel; 
Yahwe  himself  was  a  jealous  God  who  practiced  vengeance  (Gen.  9:5;  cf. 
II  Sam.  21:1  ff.;  Exod.  20:4-6),  for  an  unavenged  murder  cried  aloud  to 
him  for  punishment  (Gen.  4: 10),  his  altar  did  not  protect  the  murderer  (Exod. 


APPENDIX  21 

21 :  14),  and  to  him  are  referred  the  cases  in  which  the  bj^"*!!  was  too  weak  for 
protection  Qudg.  9:20,  23  f.,  56).  This  method  of  vengeance  was  gradually 
mitigated  by  th.^  jus  talionis,  "an  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth" 
(Exod.  21:12  f.,  24  f.,  28  f.;  Lev.  24:i9f.;  Deut.  19:21;  Num.  35:30  flf.). 
This,  in  turn  was  modified  by  compensation,  until  a  sliding  scale  of  payments 
appeared,  determined  both  by  the  nature  of  the  injury  and  the  rank  of  the 
person  injured  (see  especially  the  Code  of  Hammurabi,  §§202-3,  218-20; 
cf.  Deut.  22 :  28  f.;  Exod.  21 : 30-36).  Justice,  as  we  understand  it,  the  render- 
ing to  each  man  his  due  as  judged  by  an  impartial  authority,  had  not  yet  come 
into  social  practice  and  consciousness.  Domestic  justice  did  not  excite  the 
blood-feud  and  was,  therefore,  dealt  with  by  the  arbitrary  justice  of  the  family 
or  the  kin.  It  is  not  until  the  Deuteronomic  period  that  family  law  becomes 
a  recognized  part  of  the  code,  the  members  of  the  family  claiming  the  right 
of  public  justice.  Now,  although  Yahwe  protects  and  practices  this  method 
of  revenge,  it  is  none  the  less  lacking  in  justice  to  the  individual,  since  collect- 
ive responsibility  is  vicarious  and  it  fails  to  distinguish  between  accident 
and  design  J  It  is  not  perfectly  clear  in  the  Old  Testament  whether  excusable 
homicide  is  unintentional  or  unpremeditated  (Exod.  21:13! ;  Deut.  19:4- 
6;  Num.  35:15-24).  In  fact  volition  is  so  wholly  disregarded  that  animals 
as  well  as  men  are  to  suffer  vengeance  (Gen.  9:5;  Exod.  21:28;  Lev.  20:15). 
Jus  talionis,  the  law  of  the  Old  Testament,  is  revenge,  revenge  guided  and 
limited  by  custom  (Deut.  19: 12;  Num.  35 :  12-25),  in  which  the  public  opinion 
of  the  group  and  the  protection  of  Yahwe  are  always  forces  to  be  reckoned  with, 
but  it  is  not  justice.  "It  is  only  as  an  independent  organ  for  the  adjustment 
of  disputes  and  the  prevention  of  crime  arises  that  the  common  good,  private 
rights,  and  moral  responsibility  are  bound  together  in  a  truly  ethical  deter- 
mination" (Hobhouse,  Vol.  I,  chap.  iii).  Out  of  such  a  vital  connection  with 
the  crude  justice  of  tribal  times  developed  the  historical  relations  of  Yahwe 
with  law  and  public  justice  in  Israel.  His  was  the  authority  which  main- 
tained order  and  enforced  punishment.  In  his  name  were  the  blessings  and 
curses  pronounced  upon  Gerizim  and  Ebal  (Deut.  27:15-28,  68).  In  his 
name  was  the  code  of  laws  promulgated,  just  as  the  Code  of  Hammurabi 
was  given  through  and  with  the  authority  of  the  god  Shammash.  In  addition 
to  being  some  mysterious  agency,  Yahwe  has  become  the  personal  leader 
and  protector  in  whom  dwells  the  supreme  authority. 


APPENDIX  B 

It  is  impossible  to  trace  the  content  of  the  original  Mosaic  Law,  The 
oldest  Yahwistic  collection  (Exod.,  chap.  34)  is  composite  in  character,  belong- 
ing partly  to  the  nomadic  period  (Exod.  34:250,  256,  26),  and  partly  to  the 
agricultural  stage  (Exod.  34:21,  22,  23),  but  whether  to  the  semi-agricultural 
of  Kadesh  is  still  an  open  question.  The  Elohistic  collection  of  laws  (Exod. 
20:1 — 23:33)  is  also  a  composite  writing  not  originally  a  part  of  E's  history 
of  the  transaction  at  Horeb  (so  Kuenen,  Wellhausen,  Budde,  Staerk,  Holzinger, 
Baentsch,  Moore).  The  Horeb  debharim  (20:22-26;  22:27-29;  23:10-16) 
is  later  than  the  corresponding  Yahwistic  debharim  (Exod.,  chap.  34),  lacking 
every  reference  to  the  cult  of  the  nomadic  religion  (23 :  17-19  being  an  appendix 
from  the  hand  of  Rje),  and  contains  a  protest  against  the  luxurious  altars 
characteristic  of  the  oflficial  cult  at  the  time  of  its  composition  (Exod.  20 :  24- 
26).  The  MiSpatim  (21:1 — 22:16)  with  additions  (21:12,  15-17;  22:17-19) 
and  an  appendix  of  moral  precepts  (22:20-26;  23:1-3,  6-8)  is  the  earliest 
collection  of  civil  and  moral  laws.  The  material  content  goes  back  to  the 
agricultural  period  (22:4 f.;  22:1,  6f.;  21:27 — 22:3;  22:4 f.,  9-14)  of  crude 
morals  (21:9;  22:16).  In  contrast  to  the  Horeb  and  Sinai  debharim,  the 
Mispatim  are  civil  customs,  gradually  builded  out  of  the  experiences  and  needs 
of  the  people,  and  are  certainly  pre-Deuteronomic  (Bruno  Baentsch,  Einleitung 
zu  Exodus-Levitus-Numeri,  p.  L).  The  problem  of  the  date  and  origin  of 
the  Decalogue  (Exod.  20:1-17)  ^^Y  be  approached  from  two  points  of  view: 
that  of  literary  criticism  and  that  of  the  content.  Literary  criticism  has  shown 
that  the  Decalogue  with  its  inseparable  narrative  (Exod.  32:1 — ^33:2)  belongs 
to  E  2,  a  prophetic  recension  of  E  made  after  722.  The  problem  is  not  that 
of  the  prophetic  origin  of  the  moral  nor  the  Mosaic  formulation  of  the  law. 
It  is  not  that  the  Decalogue  presents  moral  demands  for  the  first  time,  but  that 
the  Decalogue  presented  these  homely,  customary  requirements  as  the  truest 
expression  of  the  will  of  Yahwe,  excluding  at  the  same  time  from  the  compass 
of  that  will,  the  manifold  requirements  of  the  cult  heretofore  esteemed  as  the 
most  important  element  of  sacred  revelation,  both  by  the  older  traditions  of 
J  and  E  and  by  the  popular  practice. 

In  our  Decalogue,  not  only  is  the  distinctly  ethical  realized  with  clear- 
ness and  intensity,  but  it  succeeds  in  directing  conduct  and  organizing  life. 
But  the  concrete  in  experience  precedes  the  universal.  Israelite  law,  like  old 
English  law,  grew  not  so  much  through  statutory  law  as  through  concrete 
judgments:  "Thou  shalt  commit  no  murder"  was  preceded  by  the  reign  of 
blood-revenge,  and  could  only  have  found  expression  during  the  attempt  to 
suppress  vengeance  on  the  part  of  the  state.  It  is  a  question  in  the  Decalogue, 
not  of  rights  but  of  right  (Exod.  20:17;  cf  •  Deut.  5:21;  Rom.  7:7;  cf .  Kautzsch, 


APPENDIX  23 

The  Religion  of  Israel,  D.  B.,  p.  634).  Therefore  it  exerted  an  influence 
outside  of  the  borders  of  Israel  and  became  in  its  New  Testament  interpreta- 
tion the  common  property  of  Christendom.  See  the  discussion  by  Bnmo 
Baentsch,  Einleitung  zu  Exodus-Levitus-Numeri,  p.  liii;  Kotnmentar  zu 
Exodus,  pp.  177  f. 


APPENDIX  C 

The  content  of  the  Deuteronomic  laws  may  be  compared  with  the  older 
laws  of  the  Old  Testament  by  means  of  the  convenient  tables  of  Carpenter  and 
Battersby  (Hexateuch),  where  the  new  element  is  easily  discernible.  Aside 
from  the  ordinances  having  to  do  with  worship,  they  treat  of  the  family,  of 
persons  and  animals,  of  property,  of  war,  and  of  judgment  and  rule.  The 
law  concerning  the  family  shows  the  extension  of  the  conception  of  public 
offenses  to  include  acts  heretofore  regarded  as  purely  domestic  matters. 

A.  The  man  has  the  right  to — 

(o)  More  than  one  wife  (Deut.  21 :  15-17). 

(b)  Concubines  (21:10-14). 

(c)  Unrestricted  divorce  (24: 1-4),  with  two  exceptions: 

(i)  In  case  of  the  seduction  of  a  virgin  and  her  forced  marriage  (22 :  28). 
(2)  In  case  of  the  slander  of  his  newly  married  wife  (22: 13-21). 

(d)  Remarriage  after  divorce,  except  in  case  of  wife's  second  marriage  and 
divorce  (24:4). 

(e)  Widow  of  eldest  brother  upon  choice  (25:5-10)  when  brethren  dwell 
together. 

(/)   Property  rights  in  his  daughter,  if  virgin  when  married  (22 :  13-19,  29). 

The  man  is  obligated  to — 

(c)  Recognize  the  rights  of  a  rebellious  son  to  public  justice,  thus  cur- 
tailing his  power  of  life  and  death  over  his  son. 

(6)  Acknowledge  the  primogeniture  of  a  firstborn,  son  of  a  hated  wife,  by 
giving  him  a  double  portion. 

(c)  Grant  a  seduced  daughter  the  right  of  marriage. 

(d)  Regard  the  reputation  of  a  newly  married  wife. 

(e)  Grant  freedom  to  the  widow  rejected  in  the  Levirate  marriage. 
(/)   Respect  certain  impedimenta  to  marriage. 

B.  The  rights  of  the  woman  are  maintained  to — 

(c)  Her  life,  if  forced  when  betrothed  (22:25-27). 

(b)  Marriage,  if  seduced  when  not  betrothed  (22:28). 

(c)  Protection  from  slander  by  her  husband  (22 :  13-21). 

(d)  Rights  of  a  concubine,  if  a  slave  (22: 10-14). 

(e)  Maintenance  of  son's  rights  of  inheritance  when  a  hated  wife  (21:15- 

17). 
(J)  Freedom  in  seventh  year  of  servitude  with  gifts,  when  a  slave  (15:12- 

18). 
The  woman  is  obligated  to — 

(a)  Acceptance  of  a  bill  of  divorce  without  payment  of  a  dowry  (24: 1-4). 
{b)  Purity  (21:10-14;  22:13-27;  22:5;  23:17). 

34 


APPENDIX  25 

C.  The  rights  of  a  son  are  maintained  to — 
(a)  Primogeniture  (21:15-17). 

{b)  A  pubUc  trial  for  life  when  undutiful  (21 :  18-21). 
(c)  Instruction  in  the  law  (6:6-9,  20-25;   11:19-21). 
The  son  is  obligated  to — 
(a)  Honor  his  parents  (5: 16). 

(6)  Respect  his  father's  wife  and  his  own  half-sister  (27:20,  22). 
The  arbitrary  power  of  the  head  of  the  family  is  limited  by  the  emergence 
of  the  individual  with  rights  and  obligations  as  over  against  the  other  members 
of  this  smallest  social  unit  (24:16;  of.  II  Kings  14:6).    This  shows  growth 
in  the  authority  of  the  court  through  the  cases  of  offenses  considered. 

Property  was  protected,  originally,  not  because  a  thief  should  be  punished, 
but  because  a  feud,  dangerous  to  the  clan,  would  be  started  for  its  restitution. 
In  the  growing  complexity  of  life  indicated  by  the  Deuteronomic  law,  the 
individual  IsraeHte  must — 

(a)  Respect  property:  landmarks  are  not  to  be  removed  (19:17;   29:17); 

a  brother's  straying  cattle  are  to  be  restored  (22:1-4). 
(6)  Respect  the  rights  of  the  poor:  a  millstone  is  not  to  be  taken  in  pledge 
(15:1-6);    no  right  of  entry  allowable  to  get  a  pledge  nor  power  to 
retain  a  garment  over  night  (24:6,  10-13). 
(c)   Respect  the  interests  of   debtors:    usury  not  to  be   taken  from  the 
Hebrews,  allowable  from  strangers  (23:20);   debts  to  be  remitted  to 
Hebrews  at  the  end  of  seven  years  (15:1-4). 
{d)  Regard  the  needs  of  the  widow,  orphan,  and  stranger:   gleanings  left 

for  the  poor  (23:24;  24:9-22). 
Here  belongs  then,  the  social  recognition  of  property  rights  with  an 
attempt  to  protect  such  rights  rather  than  to  aid  in  avenging  their  loss.    This 
is  manifestly  a  development  of  the  fimction  of  the  court  in  the  maintenance 
of  order. 

With  the  evolution  of  social  order  and  the  growth  of  central  authority, 
the  redress  of  wrongs  begins  to  take  the  form  of  an  independent  and  impartial 
administration  of  justice  (Hobhouse,  1,97).  The  Deuteronomic  law,  concerned 
with  judgment  and  rule,  makes  for  the  attainment  of  justice  by: 

A.  Appointment  of  judges  in  every  town  by  the  people  (16: 19). 

B.  Right  of  appeal  to  a  supreme  court  at  Jerusalem  in  cases  of  questions 

concerning  property  or  personal  injury  too  difficult  for  decision  (17:8- 
13;  cf.  1:9-18;  II  Chron.  19:8-11);  the  old  practice  of  resort  to  the 
Elohim  falls  to  the  ground  (Exod.  22:8). 

C.  Method  of  trial: 

(o)  The  attempt  of  the  judge  to  investigate  the  fact  through  witnesses 

(19:15-21). 
(6)  Two  or  three  witnesses  are  required  for  conviction  (17:6). 
(c)  The  hands  of  witnesses  are  first  upon  a  murderer  in  execution  (17:6), 

thus  assuming  public  responsibility  in  the  case. 


26  APPENDIX 

D.  Forms  of  punishment: 

(o)  Jus  talionis  is  limited  to  false  witness  (19: 18-27;  cf-  Exod.  21 :  23-25). 
(6)  Flogging  may  be  practiced  by  the  judge  to  the  number  of  thirty-nine 

stripes  (25:1-3). 
(c)  Compensation  for  injury  to  property  is  fixed  (22:19,  27;   cf.  Exod. 

21:18;  22:16). 
(<:0  Trial  before  execution  of  death  penalty  for  murder  is  made  possible 

by  the  cities  of  refuge  (19:12  f,;  21:21;  22:21). 

E.  The  legal  principle  includes: 

(o)  The  distinction  between  accidental  and  intentional  murder  (19:4-13). 
(6)  The  protection  of  life  instead  of  abetting  the  avenger  (19: 1-13;  21:1- 

9). 
(c)  The  freedom  and  responsibility  of  the  individual,  "none  to  suffer  for 

the  crimes  of  another"  (24:16;  cf.  Jer.  21:29;  Ezek.  18:4). 
{d)  Justice  is  a  verdict  based  upon  an  impartial  judgment  (16:18-20; 

25:1)  without  bribery  (16:18-20;  27:25). 
(c)  The  extension  of  mercy  to  servants,  whether  Hebrew  or  non-Hebrew 

(24: 14),  to  strangers,  widows,  and  to  the  fatherless  (24: 17;  27 :  19). 
The  authority  of  the  chief  or  king  is  the  pivot  upon  which  the  function 
of  the  court  has  changed  from  that  of  sup)ervising  feuds  to  the  maintenance 
of  order  and  the  enforcement  of  punishment.  The  execution  of  corporal 
punishment  in  the  presence  of  the  judge  in  Deuteronomy  bears  sufficient 
testimony  to  this  growth  of  authority,  for  "no  Arab  sheik  would  inflict  cor- 
poral punishment  on  a  tribesman  for  fear  of  revenge"  (W.  Robertson  Smith, 
Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church,  p.  368).  Hence  the  complaint  of  David 
when  Joab  took  vengeance  upon  Abner  that  "I  am  this  day  weak,  though 
anointed  king:  and  these  men,  the  sons  of  Zeruiah  be  too  hard  for  me"  (II 
Sam.  3:385.).  Since  the  earlier  law  (Exod.,  chap.  20),  public  justice  has 
come  to  the  task  of  discovering  the  facts  in  the  case  and  of  limiting  the  responsi- 
bility for  a  wrong  to  the  individual  perpetrator,  having  grown  along  two  lines, 
in  the  extension  of  the  conception  of  public  offenses  and  in  the  mitigation  of 
the  blood-feud.  Thus  early  Hebrew  society,  resting  upon  the  ties  of  blood- 
kinship  and  the  principle  of  force,  moralized  by  ethical  and  religious  influences 
into  a  principle  of  authority  going  back  to  Yahwe,  whose  representative  the 
king  is,  finally  exacted  obedience  as  a  right,  owing  its  subjects  in  turn  an  ordered 
rule  in  the  interest  of  individual  freedom  and  moral  responsibility. 


APPENDIX  D 
Bibliography 

This  Bibliography  is  not  offered  as  exhaustive.    It  intends  to  be  only 
fairly  representative  of  the  more  recent  literature  on  this  special  subject. 

I.     CONCERNING  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE   SOCIAL,   ETHICAL,  AND  RELIGIOUS 
EVOLUTION  IN  GENERAL 

Alexander,  Samuel.    Moral  Order  and  Progress,  1891. 

Ames,  Edward  Scribner.     The  Psychology  of  Religious  Experience,  1910. 

Carver,  T.  N.     "The  Economic  Basis  of  the  Problem  of  Evil."  Harvard 

Theological  Review,  January,  1908. 
Cooley,  C.  H.    Social  Organization,  1909. 
D'Alviella,  Goblet.    "L'animisme  et  sa  place  dans  revolution  religieuse," 

Revue  de  Vhistoire  des  religions,  LXI,  1910. 
Dewey,  John.     The  Influence  of  Darwin  on  Philosophy,  1910;    "The  Evolu- 
tionary Method  as  Applied  to  Ethics,"  Philosophical  Review,  XI,  363-71. 
Dewey,  John,  and  Tufts,  J.  H.    Ethics,  1909. 
Hobhouse,  Leonard  T.    Morals  in  Evolution,  1906. 
King,  Irving.     The  Development  of  Religion,  1910. 
Kohler,     J.      "Recht     und     Volkerpsychologie,"     Politisch-anthropologische 

Revue,  I,  385-90. 
McDougall,  William.    An  Introduction  to  Social  Psychology,  1908. 
Mead,  George  H.     "The  Philosophic  Basis  of  Ethics,"  Philosophical  Review, 

April,  1908. 
Moore,  Addison  W.    Pragmatism  and  Its  Critics,  1910. 
Miinsterberg,  Hugo.    Eternal  Values,  1909. 
Perry,  Ralph  Barton.     The  Moral  Economy,  1907. 
Pratt,  J.  B.    Psychology  of  Religious  Belief,  1907. 
Rashdall,  Hastings.     The  Theory  of  Good  and  Evil,  1907. 
Ross,  Edward  A.    Social  Psychology,  1908. 
Royce,  Josiah.     The  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  1909. 
Schaub,  Edward  L.     "The  Consciousness  of  Sin,"  Harvard  Theological  Review, 

January,  1912. 
Sumner,  WiUiam  G.    Folkways,  1906. 
Super,   C.  W.     "Ethnic  Morality,"  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  XXI 

(1908),  84. 
Tennant,  F.  R.     The  Sources  of  the  Doctrines  of  the  Fall  and  Original  Sin,  1903. 
Tufts,  J.  H.    "Recent  Discussions  of  Moral  Evolution,"  Harvard  Theological 

Review,  April,  191 2. 

27 


28  APPENDIX 

Westermarck,  E.     The  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Moral  Ideas,  I,  1906; 

II,  1908. 
Wilde,  Norman.    "  The  Meaning  of  Evolution  in  Ethics,"  International  Journal 

of  Ethics,  XDC,  265. 
Wright,  Henry  F.    "Religion  and  Morality,"  International  Journal  of  Ethics, 

XX,  1807. 
Wundt,  W.    Probleme  der  V olkerpsychologie,  191 1. 

n.     CONCERNING  THE  CONCRETE  SITUATION  AMONG  THE  HEBREWS 

The  Standard  Commentaries,  Histories,  and  Theologies  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. 

Adams,  J.    Israel's  Ideas  or  Studies  in  Old  Testament  Theology,  19 10. 
Amram,  D.  W.     "Retaliation  and  Compensation,"  JQR.,  1911. 
Aubert,  Alexandre.    Les  experiences  religieuses  et  morales  du  prophUe  Amos, 

1911. 
Bade,  William  Ford.    "Hebrew  Moral  Development,"  University  of  Cali- 
fornia Chronicle,  Vol.  XIII,  No.  I,  191 1;   "Growth  of  Ethical  Ideas  in 

Old  Testament  Times,"  BW.,  XXXIII,  191 1. 
Baentsch,    Bruno.    Kommentar   zur   Exodus-Levitus-Numeri,    1903;     Mono- 

theismus,  1906. 
Baethgen,  Friedrick.    Beitrdge  zur  semitischen  Religions geschichte,  1888. 
Barton,  G.  A.    A  Sketch  of  Semitic  Social  Origins,  1902. 
Baudissen,  Wolf  Wilhelm,  Graf,  Studien  zur  semitischen  Religions  geschichte, 

1876. 
Bennewitz,  Fritz.    Die  SUnde  im  alten  Israel,  1907. 
Bernard,  J.  H.    Article  "Sin,"  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  1902. 
Bertholet,  A.    Die  Stellung  der  Israeliten  u.  der  Juden  zu  den  Fremden,  1896. 
Bruce,  William  Stratton.     The  Ethics  of  the  Old  Testament,  1895. 
Budde,  Karl.    Religion  of  Israel  to  the  Exile,  1899;  Die  biblische  Urgeschichte, 

1883. 
Buhl,  Franz.    Die  sozialen  Verhaltnisse  der  Israeliten,  1899. 
Burton,  Ernest  DeWitt,  John  Merlin  Powis  Smith,  and  Gerald  B.  Smith. 

Biblical  Ideas  of  Atonement,  1909. 
Caspari,  Wilhelm.     Die  Religion   in  dem   assyrisch-babylonischen  Busspsal- 

men,  1903. 
Cheyne,  Thomas  Kelly.    Jewish  Religious  Life  after  the  Exile,  1898;   Origin 

and  Religious  Contents  of  the  Psalter,  1892. 
Curtiss,  S.  J.    Primitive  Semitic  Religion  To-Day,  1902. 
Cornill,  C.  H.    Israelitische  V olksreligion  und  die  Propheten,  das  Christentum, 

1908. 
Clemen,  Carl.    Die  christliche  Lehre  von  der  SUnde,  1897. 
Day,  Edward.    Social  Life  of  the  Hebrews,  1901. 
Drucker,  A.  P.    The  Culture  of  Ancient  Israel,  191 1. 


APPENDIX  29 

Duff,  Archibald.     Theology  and  Ethics  of  the  Hebrews,  1902. 

Eiselen,  Fr.  C.     "The  Tree  of  the  Knowledge  of  Good  and  Evil,"  BW., 

XXXVI,  loi;  Prophecy  and  Prophets  in  Their  Historical  Relations,  1909. 
Foster,  Gerhard.    Das  Mosdische  Strafrecht,  1900. 
Frey,  Johannes.     Tod,  Seelenglaube  u.  Seelenkult  im  alten  Israel,  1898. 
Giesebrecht,   Pr.     "The  Moral  Level  of  the  Old  Testament   Scriptures," 

AJT.,  1907,  p.  31. 
Griineisen,  Carl.    Ahnenkultus  und  die  Urreligion  Israels,  1900. 
Haller,  M.    Religion,  Recht  und  Sitte  in  den  Genesis-Sagen,  ein  Religions- 

geschichtlicher  Versuch,  1905. 
Hehn,  Johannes.    Siinde  und  Erlosung,  nach  hiblischer  u.  babylonischer  An- 

schauung,  1903. 
Herman,  Joh.     "Die  soziale  Predigt  der  Propheten,"    Bibl.  Zeit-  u.  Streit- 

fragen,  VI,  S.  12,  34. 
Kautzsch,  Emil.    Article  "Religion  of  Israel,"    Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the 

Bible,  V,  1904. 
Kleinert,  P.    Die  Propheten  Israels  in  sozialer  Beziehung,  1905. 
Kirchner,  Victor.      "Subjekt  imd  Wesen  der  Siindenvergebung  besonders 

auf  der  fruhesten  Religionsstufe  Israels,"  Theologische  Studien  u.  Kritiken, 

1905,  S.  173. 
Kohler  und  Peiser.    Atis  dem  babylonischen  Rechtsleben,  1890. 
Koberle,  Justus.     "Die  Bedeutung  der  Siindenvergebung  im  A.T.,"  Neue 

kirchl.  Zeitschrift,  1905;  Siinde  und  Gnade  im  religiosen  Leben  des  Volkes 

Israel  bis  auf  Christum,  1905. 
Konig,  Ed.    Geschichte  der  alttestamentlichen  Religion,  kritisch  dargestellt,  191 2. 
Larson,  George.    Der  Menschen  Schuld  u.  Schicksal  nach  I  Mose  2-3,  1908. 
Lagrange,  Marie-Joseph.    Etudes  sur  les  religions  semitiques,  1905. 
Lazarus,  Moritz.     The  Ethics  of  Judaism,  1900. 
Lods,  Ad.     "La  morale  des  prophetes"  in  Morales  et  religions:  Etudes,  Paris, 

1909. 
Lehmaim-Haupt,  C.  F.      Israel,  seine  Entmickelung   im  Rahmen  der  Welt- 

geschichte,  191 1. 
Lineham,  J.     "Sin  and  Sacrifice,"  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  October, 

1905,  p.  88. 
Lohr,  M.    Alttest.  Religionsgeschichte,  1906. 
Loisy,  A.     The  Religion  of  Israel,  1910. 
Lovejoy,  Arthur  O.     "The  Origins  of  Ethical  Inwardness  in  Jewish  Thought," 

AJT.,  XI,  228,  1907. 
Matthes,  J.     "Oorsprong  en  gevolgender  Zonde  volgens  het  Oude  Testament," 

Theol.  Tijdschrift,  XXIV,  225;  "Die  Suhnegedanken  bei  den  Sundopfer," 

ZAW.,  p.  97,  1903. 
Marti,  Karl.    Geschichte  der  israelitisclien  Religion,  1907. 
Meinhold,  Johannes.    Studien  zur  israelitischen  Religionsgeschichte,  Der  heilige 

Rest,  1903. 


30  APPENDIX 

Morgenstem,  Julian.     The  Doctrine  of  Sin  in  the  Babylonian  Religion,  1905. 
Oestreicher,  Th.     "Die  Stellung  des  Gesetzes  in  der  israelitischen  Religions- 

geschichte,"  Rch.,  191 1,  S.  89. 
Orchard,  W.  E.     The  Evolution  of  Old  Testament  Religion,  1909. 
Orelli,   Conrad   von.     "Einige   alttestamentliche   Pramissen    zur    neutesta- 

mentlichenVersohungslehre/'ZA'PF.,  1884,  Heft  1-6;  Allgemeine Religions- 

gcschichte,  I.  Band,  191 1. 
Perrochet,  A.    U evolution  religieuse  en  Israel,  1908. 
Pfeiffer,  Franz.    Die  religios-sittliche  Weltanschauung  des  Buches  der  SpriXche, 

1897. 
Porter,  F.  C.     "The  Yefer-Hara,  A  Study  in  the  Jewish  Doctrine  of    Sin,'' 

Bih.  and  Sem.  Studies  by  Members  of  the  Biblical  and  Semitic  Faculties 

of  Yale,  1902. 
Riehm,  Eduard  C.    Der  Begrijff  der  Suhne  im  Alten  Testament,  1876. 
Roy,  H.    Die  V olksgemeinde  und  die  Gemeinde  der  Frommen  im  Psalter,  1897. 
Schmoller,  Otto.     "Das  Wesen  der  Siihne  in  der  alttestamentlichen  Opfer- 

thora,"  Theologische  Studien  u.  Kritiken,  1891,  S.  205. 
Schwally,  Friedrich.    Semitische  Kriegsaltertilmer,  1901. 
Sellin,  Ernst.    Beitrdge  zur  israelitischen  u.  jiidischen  Religions geschichte,  I,  II, 

(1896),  7. 
Slaby,  J.     "Siinde  und  Siindenstrafe  sowie  deren  Nachlass  im  alten  baby- 

lonischen  Assyrien,"  BZ.,  1910,  S.  236,  339 
Smend,  Rudolf.    Lehrbuch  der  alttestamentlichen  Religions  geschichte,  1899. 
Smith,  Ch.  E.     "Ethics  of  the  Mosaic  Law,"  BS.,  April,  1909,  p.  267. 
Smith,  H.  P.     "The  Hebrew  View  of  Sin,  '  AJT.,  XV,  525. 
Smith,  J.  M.  P.     The  Day  of  Yahweh,  1901. 
Smith,  W.  Robertson.     The  Religion  of  the  Semites,  2d  ed.,  1894;  The  Prophets 

of  Israel,  1882. 
Staerk,  Willy.     "Die  Gottlosen  in  den  Psalmen,"   Theologische  Studien  u. 

Kritiken,  1897,  S.  445;   Siinde  u.  Gnade  nach  des  Vorstellung  des  dlteren 

Judentums,  besonders  der  Dichter  der  sag.  Busspsalmen,  1905;  Religion  u. 

Politik  im  alten  Israel,  1905. 
Stade,  B.    Biblische  Theologie  im  Alten  Testament,  1905. 
Stade  u.  Bertholet.    Biblische  Theologie  des  Alten  Testaments,  Vol.  II,  191 1. 
Sternberg,  G.    Die  Ethik  des  Deuteronomiums,  1908. 
Todd,  J.  C.    Politics  and  Religion  in  Ancient  Israel,  an  introduction  to  the 

study  of  the  Old  Testament,  1904. 
W'cllhausen,  Julius.    Reste  des  Arab-IIeidentums,  1897. 
Wiener,  H.  M.     "Israel's  Laws  and  Legal  Precedents,"  BS.,  1908,  p.  97. 
Wiener,  Max.    Die  Anschauungen  der  Propheten  von  der  Sittlichkeit,  I,  1909. 
Zimmern,  Heinrich.    Die  babylonischen  Busspsalmen,  1895. 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRA 

iiiiiriiiiii 


CDE311SiD^ 


